September 2, 1922] 



NA TURE 



[29 



and submultiples, vary from district to district, and, 

 indeed, are very far from being uniform throughout 

 a district. As their use is largely confined to local 

 transactions this variation is of less importance, for the 

 normal customers of each market are fully aware of 

 the measures in use there. It would be of little 

 interest to give the innumerable names of these 

 measures; one example of their variability will suffice. 

 The gauni is a widely used measure in Orissa ; the 

 Balasore district reports the use of 18 different 

 gaunis, said to contain anything from 1 to over 8 

 seers of paddy. In Cuttack its limits are somewhat 

 closer — 1 1 to 7 seers— while in Puri they are said to 

 be from 2 to 8, and 9 different gaunis are reported as 

 in use. The actual measure is made of wicker. 



The standardised measures of Madras and Burma 

 call for more detailed comment. In Madras there are 

 two, known respectively as the Madras type measure 

 or padi and the Madras type seer ; they are defined 

 as holding respectively 120 and 80 tolas of second sort 

 rice when " struck " or 132 and 88 when " heaped." 

 Of water they contain 62-5 and 41-7 oz. One or 

 other is used throughout a considerable portion of the 

 Madras Presidency, but by no means to the exclusion 

 of numerous other measures which may or may not 

 bear a definite relationship to them. 



It is, however, in Burma that capacity measures 

 are of greatest importance, as it is by the tin or. 

 " basket " that rice is almost universally bought and 

 sold wholesale, and by its submultiple measures 

 retail. The table of measures most frequently used 

 is : 2 lame = 1 zale ; 2 zale = 1 hkwet ; 2 hkwet = 1 pyi 

 or byi (or with the initial particle ta — ta-byi, whence 

 "tubby"); 2 pyi=i sayat; 2 sayat=i seik; 2 seik 

 = 1 hkwe ; and 2 hkwe=i tin or basket. It is an 

 interesting comment on the desire for a standard 

 measure that the tin of " Milkmaid " brand con- 

 densed milk has become universally recognised as 

 representing one lame ; the Nestle's tin as one zale, and 

 the tin containing preserved lichis as 3^ lame. In 

 origin the lame is said to have been two handfuls, and 

 the basket to have come into existence as being the 

 amount of unhusked rice a man could conveniently 

 carry at one time. The Burmese Government 

 appears to have made some attempt at standardising 

 it, and the British Government has more or less 

 recognised as the standard basket one containing 9 

 gallons, other baskets being defined in Government 

 reports in terms thereof. The baskets in ordinary 

 use throughout the country vary a good deal, being 

 usually somewhat smaller than 9 gallons. Most, 

 however, contain between 8 and 9 gallons. The 

 basket used by the rice-millers of Rangoon, Bassein, 

 and Moulmein is as a rule a cylindrical wooden vessel, 

 24^ in. or 25 in. in height and 14J in. or 15 in. in 

 diameter. One of these measures is taken to measure 

 a consignment of paddy, and every now and then a 

 basket is weighed — usually 5 or 6 per 10,000. The 



price is fixed at so much per 100 baskets of 46 lb., 

 with the proviso that 2i per cent, more be paid for 

 every pound the average basket weighs in excess of 

 46, while for every pound it weighs less 2 per cent, is 

 deducted. For other produce for export, baskets 

 containing definite weights are used, and trade in 

 them is really by weight. But rural trade is almost 

 entirely by measure. 



There are practically no true liquid measures any- 

 where ; occasionally one of the dry measures will be 

 used, but the usual way of selling liquids is by weight, 

 a measure containing a definite weight of the specific 

 liquid for which it is used being frequently used for 

 convenience. 



We thus find that throughout the country, with the 

 exception of Burma and to a less extent of Madras (here 

 only as regards weights below the tola), the tola of 

 180 grains or the weight of the rupee is a universally 

 recognised unit, and to an almost equal extent the 

 " railway " seer of 80 such tolas is at least known 

 and over a large extent of the country actually used. 

 The identity of the weight of this tola and of the 

 rupee is a most important point to remember, as it 

 makes it almost compulsory to change the weight of 

 that coin if any system not based on this tola be 

 introduced. This is a proceeding very liable to be 

 viewed with great suspicion by the less educated 

 portion of the community. For a measure of length 

 the British yard is almost universally known and very 

 widely used. As a measure of area the acre is fast 

 becoming the only really definite one. Measures of 

 capacity are various, but dependent on measures of 

 weight. 



Accordingly the majority of the Weights and Measures 

 Committee recommended the adoption of the " rail- 

 way " seer of 80 tolas (each of 180 grains), the British 

 yard and the acre as fundamental units, and suggested 

 the standardisation of suitable measures of capacity 

 at the nearest suitable multiple of the bulk of ij 

 seers of water, this being approximately equivalent 

 to the bulk of a seer of wheat. This conclusion, 

 negativing any approximation to a decimal system, 

 was certainly viewed with regret by myself, but the 

 binary system and the rupee-tola unit are so firmly 

 rooted in the country that it seemed inadvisable to 

 attempt to change a method which was at least 

 equallv good for the ordinary transactions of every- 

 day life for one the advantages of which are apparent 

 mainly in foreign trade. The fact that practically no 

 progress towards adopting the metric system in England 

 has been made {vide Nature, vol. no, p. 29) is of 

 considerable interest in this connexion, for when 

 such is the case in a highly educated and intensely 

 commercial country, where the proportion of foreign 

 trade is probably higher than anywhere in the world, 

 would it have been justifiable to recommend the 

 compulsory adoption of the metric — or, in fact, of any 

 decimal — svstem for India ? 



T T is, we believe, a misfortune that so large a 

 *■ proportion of teachers of botany in schools 

 know little practically of the cultivation of plants. 

 It is, indeed, not unusual for simple laboratory ex- 

 periments involving the use of growing seedlings and 

 plants to come to an untimely end owing to lack 

 of precautions which would be observed by every 

 practical gardener. The uncertainty of success of 

 even simple experiments in such unskilled hands 

 is no doubt in part responsible for the fact that 

 school botany is still so largely concerned with 



1 The Botany Gardens of the James Allen's Girls' School, Dulwicb 

 Board of Education. Educational Pamphlet No. 41. Price 2S. 



School Instruction in Botany. 1 



taxonomy — which only the trained botanist can 

 appreciate fully — and so little with those fundamental 

 aspects of plant biology which should be of interest 

 to all. 



A general understanding of the significance of 

 green plants in relation to the food problem, of the 

 conditions controlling the growing of crops, and of 

 the differences between such " artificial " vegetation 

 and the natural vegetation of the countryside, with 

 similar matters of fundamental importance, should 

 be as much a part of general educational equipment 

 as is the knowledge that the earth revolves round the 

 sun, or the ability to use decimal notation. 



2 75 7' VOL - ' IO ] 



